Hunger Games
I have a confession. I have not read this book. Nor have I seen the movie.
It has been interesting sampling the opinions of friends and family though. Most are aware of the series; a couple really aren't. The friends who read and enjoyed the Hunger Games trilogy are the same ones who enjoyed Harry Potter and/or Twilight--with a few exceptions. And the ones who are avoiding Hunger Games also avoided Harry Potter and/or Twilight.
I don't really fit into either camp, but fully support both in their respective decisions. And I'm grateful for the differences that spark conversations in which we're encouraged to examine questions of how our faith affects our media consumption.
But my reasons for not seeing the Hunger Games don't stem from any moral issues with the book/movie. My avoidance of it so far is writing related. I am working on my own YA dystopian, Scapegoat. It's completely unrelated to Suzanne Collin's series, but I don't want to be influenced by it.
I've mentioned Scapegoat in other posts and how, as I write, I see how stories like The Village, The Giver, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, among others, have threaded their themes into my novel. In our media saturated age, it's difficult to write without being heavily influenced.
And actually, that's not all bad.
If you examine the books and movies you love the most you'll probably notice some universal themes running through them. The repeated themes may manifest differently in each story--but they are there. And it's why we love those stories. In the music world, Pandora has capitalized on this concept. You can customize music stations based on certain themes (tonality, major or minor key, structure, sound, instruments, etc). Amazon and Goodreads are starting to do this in the book world; Netflicks has a decent matching system as well--recommending movies or TV shows of a similar feel or genre.
So, on the one hand, I WANT to read the Hunger Games and see the movie because I think it might inspire my writing on Scapegoat. But at the same time, there is a part of me that yearns for the ridiculous--a unique story.
For now, Hunger Games and it's sequels will wait. I may never get to them as I'm having too much fun exploring Arkadia, the world in Scapegoat. But if you're looking for a review on the Hunger Games, might I recommend you stop by the Raven's Landing where Cossette has a helpful review.
It has been interesting sampling the opinions of friends and family though. Most are aware of the series; a couple really aren't. The friends who read and enjoyed the Hunger Games trilogy are the same ones who enjoyed Harry Potter and/or Twilight--with a few exceptions. And the ones who are avoiding Hunger Games also avoided Harry Potter and/or Twilight.
I don't really fit into either camp, but fully support both in their respective decisions. And I'm grateful for the differences that spark conversations in which we're encouraged to examine questions of how our faith affects our media consumption.
But my reasons for not seeing the Hunger Games don't stem from any moral issues with the book/movie. My avoidance of it so far is writing related. I am working on my own YA dystopian, Scapegoat. It's completely unrelated to Suzanne Collin's series, but I don't want to be influenced by it.
I've mentioned Scapegoat in other posts and how, as I write, I see how stories like The Village, The Giver, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, among others, have threaded their themes into my novel. In our media saturated age, it's difficult to write without being heavily influenced.
And actually, that's not all bad.
If you examine the books and movies you love the most you'll probably notice some universal themes running through them. The repeated themes may manifest differently in each story--but they are there. And it's why we love those stories. In the music world, Pandora has capitalized on this concept. You can customize music stations based on certain themes (tonality, major or minor key, structure, sound, instruments, etc). Amazon and Goodreads are starting to do this in the book world; Netflicks has a decent matching system as well--recommending movies or TV shows of a similar feel or genre.
So, on the one hand, I WANT to read the Hunger Games and see the movie because I think it might inspire my writing on Scapegoat. But at the same time, there is a part of me that yearns for the ridiculous--a unique story.
For now, Hunger Games and it's sequels will wait. I may never get to them as I'm having too much fun exploring Arkadia, the world in Scapegoat. But if you're looking for a review on the Hunger Games, might I recommend you stop by the Raven's Landing where Cossette has a helpful review.
Aww! Thanks for the plug :-) And I would like to go on record and say that I am neither a Harry Potter fan nor a Twilight fan, but I read and enjoyed (as much as one can) the Hunger Games trilogy. I find the comparison between HG and the others mostly driven by the fact that each series has been wildly popular in recent history.
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